


[Text of] I've Run A Game

by jedusaur



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: DIY being a human, F/M, Gen, Growing Up, imposter syndrome, unhealthy levels of independence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9241919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedusaur/pseuds/jedusaur
Summary: That night after Nanny fell asleep, Paris snuck downstairs and spent an hour struggling through the section on economics in her father’s nineteenth-century sixth-edition Encyclopedia Britannica, which Paris was not under any circumstances allowed to touch. She eventually concluded that “economics” meant “money” and that grownups always made things way more complicated than they needed to be.(Paris Geller refuses to not know things.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/gifts).



> Written for exmanhater to record for ITPE 2016. You should [listen to the podfic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9157996) instead of reading this; it was written specifically for Kes's wonderfully dry tones and deep understanding of Paris as a character, and I think the podfic is much better than the text.

“Pathetic,” Paris said, rolling her eyes.

The old man paused in the middle of opening his wallet. “Excuse me?”

“Two boxes. It’s pathetic.”

He snapped the wallet closed. “And why should I buy any cookies at all from such a rude little girl?”

Paris lifted her chin defiantly. “Because it supports the community and it goes to a good cause and it teaches me economics and kids learning economics is important for the future.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Can you even define ‘economics’?”

Paris had absolutely no clue how to define ‘economics.’ She wasn’t fully solid on ‘define’ either. “It’s important,” she repeated. “Because selling cookies is a good learning experience for kids.”

The old man started to put his wallet back in his pocket. Paris could feel her Smart Cookie badge slipping through her fingers. “Mr. Peterson bought eight boxes,” she blurted out desperately.

That got his attention. He narrowed his eyes over her shoulder at the house across the street. “Eight boxes?”

Paris nodded firmly. “And he said he was sure nobody else on this block would buy more.”

She walked away with twenty dollars. When she told Nanny about it later, Nanny laughed and said it sounded like she had learned plenty about economics.

That night after Nanny fell asleep, Paris snuck downstairs and spent an hour struggling through the section on economics in her father’s nineteenth-century sixth-edition Encyclopedia Britannica, which Paris was not under any circumstances allowed to touch. She eventually concluded that “economics” meant “money” and that grownups always made things way more complicated than they needed to be.

(“Define” just meant “say a definition.” She’d been pretty sure about that one, but it never hurt to check.)

*

“But we’ve also gained _social_ imaginary appetites, and that’s a recent development,” Paris argued. “In Marx’s time, there was no infrastructure for social overvaluation.”

“Are you kidding?” Jamie said. “In Marx’s time, social infrastructure was nothing _but_ overvaluation.”

“Not true.” Paris wagged her finger at him. She could see him grinning a little at the finger-wagging, but though she had started to come around a little on the subject of flirtatious teasing, she would not permit it to distract from her point. “Social valuation was high, but it wasn’t falsely inflated, it was actually high. Now, with the globalization of communication...”

He was smiling again, and not a mocking one. Genuine smiles directed at Paris were so rare that she wasn’t very good at identifying them, but she was actually starting to believe despite herself that maybe this guy actually liked her.

“You just stopped talking in the middle of a sentence,” Jamie observed. The firelight was casting some very attractive shadows across his face. Paris had not known shadows could be attractive.

“With the globalization of communication, it’s easier than ever to assign unrealistic values to social interactions that...” She trailed off again, and then snapped, “You know, it’s kind of difficult to keep three levels of indented bullet points on the capitalist nuances of allocating attention organized in my head when you keep looking at me like you’re going to kiss me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “It’s just that it’s kind of difficult to listen to you work through three levels of indented bullet points on the capitalist nuances of allocating attention without kissing you.”

Paris frowned. “Because you want to shut me up?”

“No,” Jamie said patiently. “Because it’s sexy.”

Paris stared at him, trying to analyze the probability that he was serious. She didn’t know how to tell. No one had ever called her sexy before. “Are you serious?” she demanded, because bluntness was usually the most effective way to deal with uncertainty.

“Yeah.” Jamie rubbed his knuckles gently along her upper arm. “Tell me how ‘the quantity of money becomes to an ever greater degree its sole effective quality’ translates to modern social globalization. I’m almost convinced you’re right.”

That exact quote was two bullet points down Paris’s mental list, but Jamie’s fingers were warm and she couldn’t remember the one in between. “We’ll resume this discussion later,” she decided, and straddled his lap.

Sex was like anything else Paris had ever done for the first time: uncomfortable, unfamiliar, laced with the excitement of a new challenge. She was sure she could do better if she tried, but Jamie didn’t seem to be complaining, so she didn’t mention it, just started formulating a research plan in her head as his grunts got louder and louder. Figuring out the right search terms to find realistic porn probably wouldn’t be easy. She was looking forward to it already.

*

Paris wrapped her legs around Doyle’s waist and locked her ankles, expertly shifting him to the angle that she’d determined through extensive trial and error worked best for them both. She could feel the washing machine gearing up for the spin cycle under her ass, and she knew that once it started doing that violent shaking thing Doyle would be too wrapped up in the throes of ecstasy to pay attention to maintaining optimal angles. 

Something clanked inside the washing machine, and it shuddered twice and went still.

“What was that?” Doyle asked, pausing.

“Our washing machine bit the dust, I would surmise.” Paris nudged his tailbone with her heel. “Nobody told you to stop, loverboy.”

He thrust once and then froze again. “Uh, Paris? There’s water on the floor?”

Paris sighed and grabbed her pants off the dryer. She’d really been looking forward to this orgasm. 

Doyle tucked his dick away, glancing nervously down at the rapidly spreading puddle. “I think we should call a plumber.”

“Plumbers are for toilets.” Paris zipped up her fly and rolled her pant legs halfway up her calf before hopping down and peering around behind the machine.

“I think plumbers work with all kinds of water supply systems, actually,” Doyle said.

“Leave,” Paris told him.

He took a step back. “You mean, leave the room, or--”

“The house, Doyle, leave the house.” She splashed her way over to the other side of the basement and hauled down the old toolbox from her Habitat for Humanity days. “Chop chop, let’s go.”

Doyle retreated obediently, and Paris got to work. Twenty minutes later she went upstairs to dig the manual for the washing machine out of the junk drawer, along with two flashlights, an icing spatula, and a multitool. Forty minutes after that, soaked head to toe, she went back upstairs to search “washing machine giant rubber band leak” on the computer, and then changed into respectable clothes and headed out to Home Depot.

“Need help finding anything?” asked a friendly man in an orange apron.

“No,” Paris said breezily. “I know what I’m doing.”

*

“Why do you do it?” Paris demanded.

Rory ate another M&M without looking up from her magazine. “Hello, Paris. I could have sworn I locked the front door.”

“You did.” Paris flipped her lockpicks back into her multitool and slid it into her purse. “The internet has very little worthwhile information about friendship. It’s all hokey bullshit.”

“You could have knocked,” Rory pointed out. “Had you knocked, I would have let you in, and then maybe we could both have been there for the beginning of this fascinating conversation.”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Paris complained. “I’m a pain in the ass. I just broke into your house and all you do is sit there cracking wise. Why would you tolerate that kind of behavior? What do you get out of this? I don’t understand. I _hate_ not understanding.”

“You hate not understanding,” repeated Rory.

“Yes, Mojo Jojo, that’s what I said. Throw me a goddamn rope here, would you?”

“That’s why, Paris.” Rory grabbed Paris by the hand and hauled her down onto the couch next to her. “Because you hate not knowing things. You didn’t understand friendship, so you looked it up, and when that didn’t work you came and asked me. I love that about you.” She offered Paris an M&M.

Paris reluctantly took it. “So you’re saying there are appealing facets of my character that cause you to seek out my company?”

“Yes,” said Rory.

“That’s exactly what the hokey bullshit on the internet said. I just wasted a whole trip over here for nothing.”

Rory tucked her feet under Paris’s thigh companionably. “Well, you did get an M&M out of it,” she pointed out.

Paris reached for one of the magazines on the coffee table and shook it open, leaning back into the couch cushions. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I did get an M&M.”

**Author's Note:**

> "I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.'” --Maya Angelou

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] I've Run A Game](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9157996) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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